a beginning
by accionostalgia
Summary: in which young Albus S. Potter brings painting Severus a gift.   pairing: snape/lily


Authors note: i know in the books Snape's portrait is not put up in the headmasters office. so i placed him in the corridor leading to it. i thought that either McGonagall or even harry would have seen to it that he was somehow incorporated into the school. i think that its would be safe to assume that portraits only hold a piece of the person they were painted for and that the piece that was painted into this portrait was that of the side that still had feelings for Snape. Harry, who would have commissioned the painting of his mother had told her about how Snape had protected him all of those years and had died doing just that. maybe even shared what he had seen in the pencive.

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><p>Harry and Ginny Potter's second son, Albus Severus Potter, strolled down a corridor in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; baring a gift for someone special, someone he had been told about since he could remember. It was the end of the first week of his first year and his first piece mail from home arrived during breakfast the day before. A large flat package wrapped in crinkled brown paper, delivered by his own owl and his mothers. He carried it now towards the Headmasters' office.<p>

It was nearly curfew and Albus had not been inside the castle walls all day, early September and the air in the castle was a stale kind of cold. He had been exploring the grounds, even visited Hagrid and had stayed in the Quidditch pitch to watch his elder brother, James Potter, try out as keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Albus stepped onto the staircase that would lead him to the Headmasters room. He was not sure exactly where the old painting was but he crept along all the same. Finally he found it, the plaque read **Severus Snape 1998** in scrawling handwriting.

_So this is who I'm named after_, Albus stared wonderingly at the, who slept unknowingly. In the empty space next to Snape's portrait Albus hung the gift and crept off, smiling.

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><p>Severus Snape awoke, scowl faced, to two people talking on either side of him. One voice he knew as Albus but the other was soft, like a voice out of his dreams. He was sure he had heard it before, perhaps a long time ago.<p>

"… Seeing as we had only… oh, he's awake" Severus could hear the smirk in the old Headmasters voice as he shuffle away.

He turned blearily towards his left, where the voice was coming from and was met with a soft kiss on the cheek. "Hello Sev," the woman greeted him with a name he had not heard in years.

Severus sighed, blinked a few times and looked into a pair of distantly familiar green eyes. "…Lily," he breathed, jumped out of his chair and pulled her into a fierce hug.

Tears were welling in Severus' eyes as he embraced Lily, perhaps for longer than necessary, but Lily did not seem to want to let go either. He pulled back and smiled at her, tucking some of her auburn hair behind her ear and then dropped is hand abruptly. Lily frowned a little at the loss.

"Lily… I," Severus began but he did not know where to start.

She ran her hand through his hair, paused upon the nape of his neck and nodded, waiting. He closed his eyes and took a breath, he had waited many years to say this and he was not about to hold it back now.

"I- I'm sorry," his voice was uneven, "I wish…" Severus' voice broke, "I wish I could have given you that kind of protection- protection only true love can give." Tears flowed freely now, "I loved you like that, I _still_ love you, I- I could have…" he bowed his head, as if in defeat.

This was a side of Severus he had only ever shown once, holding Lily's lifeless body next to her wailing son. It had broken Lily seeing him in that much pain. Until that moment, she had never known just how long he had loved her.

Lily moved her hand to his chin and propped it up.

"Sev," she spoke kindly, "I know you did what you could and you couldn't have known…" she swiped his tear away with her thumb, "it's okay now, you've got me."

He shifted and then nodded. Lily twined their fingers together and leaned over and kissed the bridge of his nose, then moved towards his lips. His eyes widened at the contact and he inhaled sharply. They broke apart after a minute and sighed in unison.

Smiling weakly, his eyes locked on her brilliant green ones. He had waited years to see these eyes again, to have them look at him with the same love. He would have given everything- he _had _given everything. Struggled for years looking at her son and his eyes, _so _like his mothers but finding strength beneath anguish to keep him safe. Being reminded of how he had failed at saving his only love. Now it was over and Severus had never been happier but he was still wary.

"You'll stay here… with me?" he wrapped his arm around her waist.

"Always," she vowed.


End file.
